Philosophical Vegan Forum

I remember when I first became an Atheist, I was baffled by the amount of people who believed in extreme fundamentalist forms of Christianity. People such as Ray Comfort, Ken Ham and Fred Phelps who believed such things as the earth being 6,000 years old, dinosaurs living alongside humans, etc. And now you don't see so much of them do you? I mean, they're still around, but you have to look really hard to find them, I remember when you couldn't hold a debate without one of them coming into it spouting their ignorant views! Now, you have other people who have overtaken them in craziness.

There are still people who hold their lunatic views (on climate change, the economy, immigration, etc.) but they are now the Alt-Right, who seem to be more concerned with ideology than religion, and they just aren't the same. A lot of the Alt-Right have somewhat liberal views on social issues, like Milo Yiannopoulous, who is gay, and if they don't then they take it all the way with their socially conservative views, like Smoloko, who admire Hitler and the Nazis, when I always used to enjoy a good debate with somebody who thought Hitler was a left-wing Atheist (sure, you get those like Steven Crowder, but as far as I know, he doesn't believe the earth is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs lived alongside humans, so it just isn't the same).

And then you have the SJWs and Feminazis who get triggered by everything and want to censor all the things they don't like. I remember when Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives used to talk about Secular Liberals wanting to ban their religion and declare war on Christmas, and I was like "lol no nobody's like that!" AND NOW THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE LIKE THAT!!! People who are so stupid that they actually thing somebody calling themselves "Hugh Mungus" is sexual harrassment, and that if somebody does not vote for Hillary then that means they are sexist. There are plenty of other crazy ideologies who have taken over the internet (e.g. Anarcho Capitalism, Anti-Vaxxers, etc.) but I can't be bothered to go into too much detail on them, so I have just spoken about Alt-Rightists and SJWs, who I believe to be the major two.

Well, I don't know about you, but I miss the Fundamentalist Christians. Their craziness was tolerable because nobody actually took it seriously. And although their arguments were shit, they were at least arguments, which I can not say for mindless yellings of "CUCK!!!!!!!!" or "RAPE APOLOGIST!!!!!!!!", I think I'll take "If we came from Monkeys, then why are there still Monkeys?" over that any day! So, if there are any Fundamentalist Christians out there, please come back to us. We miss you. Come and tell us about how we are all dirty sinners and going to hell, and about how all the other bibles except for KJV are satanic, and about how Evolution is a conspiracy made up by Satanic Atheist scientists who hate God because they know he exists, and we can all have a good laugh because we know that your crazy views are never going to get any power. Please come back, seriously. We miss you.

Scientologists are probably craziest in terms of how implausible their beliefs are, but they mostly keep to themselves, so who cares. I thnk SJWs and Islamists are also high on the list, given that all empirical evidence suggests it's a terrible idea to build societies around totalitarian ideologies, yet that's what they seem to strive for.

I don't know why you think the alt-right is crazy. I see it as just a natural reaction to PC culture, censorship and all the white guilt. Basically just some dudes spamming Hitler memes from their basements to trigger oversensitive people

They left the wilds of the internet because too many of them were being converted to atheism when they tried to engage in debate.
So, they've formed closed groups and private forums.

They're still very active in politics, though. All of the excitement over internet evangelism has just passed.

EDIT: Also, the last generation of internet users who have grown out of it (with jobs and families, posting less) were more conservative. Their younger siblings and children are more liberal.

Do the idiots we see on the internet represent the majority? I think it might be, since the internet is a place where anyone can say anything without consequence. Maybe more people are idiots than we may think. But no one can be sure.

It's frustrating when people are like "Yo dude, those are just the strawmen, they don't represent the majority." How the fuck do you know? Where are your studies that give definitive proof of this?

It's not even possible to estimate, so this is a cold case.

brimstoneSalad wrote:They left the wilds of the internet because too many of them were being converted to atheism when they tried to engage in debate.
So, they've formed closed groups and private forums.

They're still very active in politics, though. All of the excitement over internet evangelism has just passed.

Do we have any idea if the internet is overall killing religion, or if it's just just helping it grow by making it easy for fundamentalists to find each other and create echo chambers?

knot wrote: Do we have any idea if the internet is overall killing religion, or if it's just just helping it grow by making it easy for fundamentalists to find each other and create echo chambers?

It may be helping the more fringe factors grow, but I think overall it is providing people with much more information than was possible in years past instantly. If you have a question about how the books of the bible were chosen, you can google it and get a better answer than the local priests' statement "It was handed down from god to man" (actual quote I once got from a preacher)

A hundred years ago if the question occurred to you "If only people who accept Jesus are saved and allowed into heaven, what about the remote people in different tribes who have never heard of Jesus? Why do they have to go to hell just because they've never heard of him?" you would likely have been in the minority because everyone else in your family didn't bother themselves with such questions. Now, google that question and you can meet groups of people across the world who wonder the same thing, learning that you are not alone in your blasphemous beliefs.

knot wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:They left the wilds of the internet because too many of them were being converted to atheism when they tried to engage in debate.
So, they've formed closed groups and private forums.

They're still very active in politics, though. All of the excitement over internet evangelism has just passed.

Do we have any idea if the internet is overall killing religion, or if it's just just helping it grow by making it easy for fundamentalists to find each other and create echo chambers?

This is not clear. But it may be the death of moderate religion, which tends to insulate fundamentalist religion. If there are just secular people and fundamentalists left, I think the secular will easily outnumber and outvote them.

knot wrote:I don't know why you think the alt-right is crazy. I see it as just a natural reaction to PC culture, censorship and all the white guilt. Basically just some dudes spamming Hitler memes from their basements to trigger oversensitive people

Do you think a movement/ideology is rational (as opposed to crazy) as long as it's a natural reaction to another development?

miniboes wrote:

knot wrote:I don't know why you think the alt-right is crazy. I see it as just a natural reaction to PC culture, censorship and all the white guilt. Basically just some dudes spamming Hitler memes from their basements to trigger oversensitive people

Do you think a movement/ideology is rational (as opposed to crazy) as long as it's a natural reaction to another development?

Depends, it's hard to tell if the alt-right are crazy because they seem to be mainly about trolling, so it's hard to tell what they think. Trying to fix political correctness with a sledge hammer might be a bad idea though

knot wrote: Depends, it's hard to tell if the alt-right are crazy because they seem to be mainly about trolling, so it's hard to tell what they think. Trying to fix political correctness with a sledge hammer might be a bad idea though

I would call that crazy behavior. It's incredibly irrational.

You wouldn't call somebody running around the house smashing walls with a sledge hammer because that person is trying to swat a fly sane, would you?